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Daggers

I am very disheartened. I can’t even muster any rage at the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act today.

Representative John Lewis called it “a dagger in the heart” of the act but it feels to me like a dagger in the heart of the nation. I am struggling with the evidence that we are more and more a country without compassion for its citizens. The purported Christian foundation that drives conservative politics applies only to the individual, not the group. The willful rejection and/or obfuscation of facts is standard operating procedure. There is much analysis to be read on this ruling, and endless spinning to be endured in the coming months. The two quotes below capture what I would be ranting about if I had the energy.

John Lewis reminds us that rights now unprotected are continuously threatened and abused, not historical:

“I remember in the 1960s when people of color were the majority in the small town of Tuskegee, Alabama. To insure that a black person would not be elected, the state gerrymandered Tuskegee Institute and the black sections of town so they fell outside the city limits.

This reminds me too much of a case that occurred in Randolph County in my own state of Georgia, when the first black man was elected to the board of education in 2002. The county legislature changed his district so he would not be re-elected.

I disagree with the court that the history of discrimination is somehow irrelevant today. The record clearly demonstrates numerous attempts to impede voting rights still exist, and it does not matter that those attempts are not as “pervasive, widespread or rampant as they were in 1965. One instance of discrimination is too much in a democracy.”

“In my judg­ment the Court errs egregiously by overriding Congress’ decision…Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Alito’s contemptuous, disrespectful eye rolling and grimacing at Ginsberg while she read the dissenting opinion should be grounds for a reprimand from Roberts. Alito leaves no illusion that the court is now a place where political insult can be offered without dignity.